Category: Paul Wellstone

Posted May 10, 2014

by Jerry Alatalo

“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be outraged by silence.”

– HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher

Perhaps world events and human history would have been different if Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone hadn’t perished in a plane crash in northern Minnesota on October 25, 2002. After all, his vote on the authorization to use military force against Iraq was crucial in whether that virtual tie-vote U.S. Senate would have given the George W. Bush administration approval to start “shock and awe.”

Unfortunately for Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcie, three staffers, and two pilots, the following span of years were different than if that, as James Fetzer describes it, “Rolls Royce of small planes”, hadn’t crashed and burned. Certain others in America could be said to have become fortunate as a result of Senator Wellstone’s “untimely” death days before Minnesota voters went to the polls to elect a now different senator, Norm Coleman, who defeated former Vice-President under Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale.

Wellstone, had he lived, was increasing his lead over Coleman after coming out against war on Iraq, and would most likely have won the election. Had he lived, he would have voted against the Iraq War authorization and the George W. Bush administration would have been unable to take “shock and awe” off the military shelf. Had he lived, he probably would have taken action to restore the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in perhaps one of the greatest mistakes in congressional history in 1999. It is now common knowledge among men and women who’ve done any research on Glass-Steagall’s importance to the economy that its repeal was the primary reason for the worldwide economic crash of 2007-8.

Paul Wellstone voted against repeal of Glass-Steagall, and his addresses to fellow senators clearly pointed out how unwise was the decision to repeal. He was prophetic in his warnings to fellow senators about what would happen, pointing out the greater wealth inequality, greatly increased incidences of fraud and abuse, massive taxpayer bailouts of the “too-big-to-fail” banks and their systemic risk to the world’s economy, along with other very negative consequences. The repeal passed with zero Republicans voting to keep Glass-Steagall in force, and Bill Clinton signed it into law.

Had he lived, Wellstone would have stood on the Senate floor and, one could imagine with triple-amputee Vietnam veteran Max Cleland (who left the 9/11 Commission while calling it a “whitewash”), called for a “real” investigation of the events of September 11, 2001 to arrive at the truth. Those who were behind the “mother of all false flags” would have become identified, prosecuted, and be behind prison bars today.

Had he lived, Wellstone would have won the 2004 Democratic nomination for president over John Kerry, then went on to defeat George W. Bush in the general election – that is if George W. Bush weren’t behind bars for his war crimes and/or role in September 11 along with Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others. He would have won re-election in 2008. Had he lived.

The world’s greatest humanitarian crisis in 2014, the now in its fourth year Syrian hired-mercenary war, would never have been allowed to deteriorate through American government support with a President Paul Wellstone. A President Wellstone may have called for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s impeachment for corruption, but would never have advocated for a violent coup d’état, instead leading in calls for legal, reasoned settlement of Ukraine’s political problems in ways that served both western and eastern Ukrainians.

A number of researchers into the death of Paul Wellstone have made very strong cases that he was the victim of a political assassination, foremost among them fellow Minnesotan James Fetzer. Attorney General in 2002 when Paul Wellstone died at age 58 – John Ashcroft – ruled out the possibility of any criminal investigation, so the FBI and National Traffic Safety Board were prohibited from investigating but for an accidental cause. Ironically, Ashcroft ran for the senate two years earlier in Missouri against Mel Carnahan. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash. The people of Missouri, after the death of Carnahan, voted for a dead man instead of Ashcroft, then Mel Carnahan’s wife was appointed to the Senate office.

Paul Wellstone – like John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others both before and after them – wanted to help create a better world for all people, everywhere. They were killed by those who want a world where a very small minority benefit, at the great expense – including the loss of innumerable innocent lives – of people everywhere.

This is the unfortunate, soul-crushing, perception-destroying, and disturbing reality.

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